Gaia Luna Video Tour: January Thaw

Gem the cat and I would like you to join us on our first ever video tour of Gaia Luna Garden.

We've chosen a pleasant day during our January thaw to make for easy walking.  You'll see where we're starting the year. And in future videos you'll be able to watch how it grows.

Even in this cold time of long darknesses, we know we've turned the corner of the seasons, and we're heading back toward Spring!

(c)2013 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

ECO ACTION: 2009 Green Goals

The Crunchy Domestic Goddess Blog  has encouraged readers to share their Green Goals for 2009.  Here, I've included my 2009 ECO ACTION goals as well as 2008 accomplishments.

As I write this out, it looks like a lot, but I realize how much I was able to comfortably do in 2008 even though I was quite sick for about 4 out of 12 months.

I hope this inspires others to try a few things.

Winter Energy Saving - 2009 GOALS:

• Use humidifiers more consistently to make the house feel warmer (even though it's cooler)
• Reduce heat loss by using window drapes and insulation kits (in addition to mini-blinds), and door draft stoppers
• Decide on a place to put up clothes drying rack indoors in cold months to air dry more loads of laundry
• Continue to do the things started in previous years
• Use or preserve all the winter veggies root cellared in the basement
• Go get a lap blanket and a cup of hot tea, rather than turning on a heater, if I get cold while doing sedentary work in my studio

Winter Energy Saving - 2008 DONE:

• Replaced the thermostat with a programmable one and set it to lower temps
• Dressed more warmly, even indoors, to tolerate lower thermostat settings
• Brought out extra blankets and quilts
• Used the woodstove only as needed, wood cut sustainably from our own property
• On sunny days used box-fan to pump warm air from the sunroom into living areas
• Kept doors to unused rooms closed
• Shifted sleeping and waking hours to maximize use of daylight for illumination, and let the house cool off during darker, colder hours
• Learned and used root cellaring techniques to store fruits and veggies in our unheated basement

Food and Household - 2009 GOALS:

• Select, buy and use a solar rechargeable reading lamp
• More food and goods purchased from local producers, at farmers markets, etc.
• Set up and use rain barrel to catch water for veggie garden
• Mulch garden early to minimize water loss and weed growth, using leaf/grass mulch from our property
• Learn about simple cleaning solutions to make and use at home
• Reduce the amount of non-recyclable packaging that comes into our house
• Go to the town's toxic waste day to dispose of non-rechargeable batteries, and other items safely
• Use rechargeable batteries from now on when ever possible
• Establish routines for taking out the compostables (If it sits inside for too long, yuck!
• Take cloth bags into all stores, not just for groceries
• Phase out use of Britta Filter system (non-recyclable unless the company changes its policy) and find a way to make drinking tape water more palatable  (Allowing a pitcher to sit so chlorine taste evaporates?  Adding lemon?  Or just getting used to it?)
• Use a glass for water around the house rather than a Nalgene bottle.  Use Nalgene bottle only for time away from the house or work outdoors.
• Maybe get a stainless steel water bottle to replace my old plastic Nalgene bottles.  Water that sits in them over night acquires a taste that makes me uneasy.
• Find my grandmothers handkerchiefs and cloth napkins and start using them.

Food and Household - 2008 DONE:

• Replaced all light bulbs in the house with energy savers
• Continued to compost most of our food scraps
• Learned to grow veggies from seed started indoors and set out when the weather warmed
• Reduced standby power consumption by rewiring studio with all equipment grouped on outlet strips to be turned off when not in use
• Dried some loads of laundry on large wooden rack (want to do more but lack privacy)
• Cooked most food from scratch using non-processed ingredients
• Started using 7th Generation cleaning products and other eco-friendly cleaning products
• Used the library more or bought used books, fewer new book purchases
• Almost all new-to-me clothes purchases were gently used, second hand (Except undergarments.  Ick!)

Transportation - 2009 GOALS:

• Run more local errands (1-2 miles from house) on foot or by bicycle
• Modify a used stroller with large wheels or get a "granny cart" to transport groceries home on foot
• Use bicycle more, have seat post adjusted for a better fit, find the most comfortable way to carry purchases or library books
• Learn to use regional bus lines for errands and outings as possible
• Get comfortable using trains for trips to cities 1-3 hours distant, instead of driving
• Remove unnecessary junk from my car to improve mileage

Transportation - 2008 DONE:

• Took a summer vacation without air travel, patronizing mostly locally owned restaurants and more local lodging
• Combined errands on single outings to reduced driving
• Drove at or slightly below the speed limit in the slow lane on the highway
• Used cruise control more
• Kept to a leisurely pace on surface streets
• Ignored the hotheads who wanted to speed around me
• Did better about leaving early for appointments so I could drive more efficiently
• Opened car windows in warm weather at speeds below 45 MPH rather than using air conditioning

GAIA LUNA: Grounds for the Ground

Compost!

Very few people get excited about the potential of rotting organic matter, but I'm one of them.

I'd heard that Starbucks gives away their spent coffee grounds to gardeners just for the asking. So this morning at about 10:30, after exercising, I stopped in and got the morning's grounds for my garden. When I asked, the girl behind the counter didn't hesitate for a moment. She added the filters from the machines into a large bag already full of grounds and cheerfully double bagged the whole lot for me to take. I walked away with about 20 lbs of grounds, which I added directly to the soil in Gaia Luna.

According to several sources (see below) coffee grounds are a good source of nitrogen for building the soil. The food I grow and consume gets its nutrients from the ground in which it grows. I'm intent on making my garden soil as rich and healthy as I possibly can, improving it each year.

Last June, I snapped a picture of my compost bins.



At the time there were mostly filled with straw mulch recently removed from the strawberry patch, fresh spring grass clippings and kitchen scraps.

Now they hold the remnants of tomato, squash, and bean plants gone by, chopped up sunflower stalks, frost-killed cosmos and nasturtiums, a large bucket load of fallen apples from beside the driveway, plus several months more kitchen scraps from daily cooking and summer preserving. They're a little short on brown, carbon rich material right now, so when I get a chance I'll rake up some fallen leaves and pine needles to add.

I'll also rake decayed leaves from last fall to add directly to the garden beds, to balance out the nitrogen rich coffee grounds.

I'm not an expert composter by any stretch of the imagination. I just dump stuff in and stir it around every so often with a shovel or pitch fork. It does it's thing, breaking down plant material and egg shells into a rich crumbly brown earthy material that grows better vegetables.

It doesn't stink unless I add too many kitchen scraps and leave them too close to the surface without piling dry leaves and things on top.

To me, it's the ultimate in recycling: today's potato peelings and coffee grounds become next summer's green bean salad.

Here's some more info on composting:

• http://www.mastercomposter.com/
• http://www.mastercomposter.com/survey/coffee.html
• Starbucks on composting coffee
• US Composting Council